Steve Gregory and more fired from KFI

[henry]

In regards to this point of FM simulcast, it actually isn't the case in Seattle & Phoenix where both KIRO & KTAR on the AM dial are sports stations. Wonder if today's news means KFI does away with its ocassional pre-recorded news updates that air on KIIS FM during commercial breaks.

How do they do hub-and-spoke news when KFI was the freaking hub?

Use New York talent for Los Angeles cut-ins? Seriously, today's layoffs make NO sense. I could see shrinking the department, but cutting it entirely? Woof!

 

[henry]

Hmmm. I've never heard of anyone in radio getting an 80% commission. Including at the agency level.

I heard of somebody getting a 100-0 cut. It was airstaff on classic country on an otherwise useless AM signal that was impossible to sell. The GM basically said, "If you can sell it, you can keep it in lieu of any pay." Guy was a local classic country legend, so he managed to find buddies who'd buy spots.

The rule of thumb: The easier it is to sell, the smaller the cut. And vice-versa. And nothing in IHM's current cluster looks too terribly difficult to sell. All pretty desirable stations.

 

[michael hagerty]

I've been avidly listening to KFI for a decade. And they introduced me to the whole "talk host talks to the reporter" schtick, and it's been one of my favorites to listen to.

I try to listen to KNX now that it's on FM and easier to punch the preset, but it has felt quite hollow. And I gotta say that if Chris Little (to tune up delivery) and Steve Gregory (to add a 2nd solid reporter, next to Demetriou) appear at KNX, it's going to be hard not to stick around on 97.1. Yeah, as much as I'd love for them to hire *all 22 people* from KFI, even just a "cautious expansion" as you say, would be smart.

IF they pick people up, it'll just be one or two. Steve Gregory is so good it's worth having a tug-of-war with management to free up money. So's Chris Little, but unless Julie Chin's thinking about retiring (she's been at KNX for 18 years and KGO for 12 before that), there's already a news director.

 

[michael hagerty]

How do they do hub-and-spoke news when KFI was the freaking hub?

Use New York talent for Los Angeles cut-ins? Seriously, today's layoffs make NO sense. I could see shrinking the department, but cutting it entirely? Woof!

If you go back a page or two, I described how iHeart has eight regional newsrooms across the country. KFI was the last iHeart station to have its own news department. It was only the hub for the Los Angeles iHeart cluster of stations.

News will now come from Total Traffic/24-7 News' Long Beach facility, which is responsible for stories and newscasts for everything south of Fresno to the east and Monterey to the west.

The original plan, in 2019, was for Long Beach to be the only newsroom in California, and with the closure of the Sacramento newsroom a few months ago and the gutting of KFI News yesterday, it is.

A further part of the plan was that, apart from major breaking news, the Long Beach newsroom would simply report stories "that are of interest to all of California." Robin Bertolucci insisted on her own newsroom to serve her audience, and Sacramento insisted on generating locally and regionally (NorCal) relevant content.

It's likely you'll see a slide to more generic "of interest to all California" content. Total Traffic's workload just increased, and iHeart's unlikely to give it more resources.

 

[michael hagerty]

And it occurs to me that I haven't said nearly enough good things about Chris Little, who's one hell of a journalist, a truly great News Director and a really nice guy, too. He and I were in contact when I was ND at KFBK and collaborated on a couple of things. First-class human being,

Meantime, Lance has more coverage, including some Instagrams from staff and former staff at KFI:

KFI Eliminates Entire 22 Person News Department

The ongoing iHeartMedia layoffs have seen the most significant elimination in one market as the News department of News/Talk 640

radioinsight.com

 

[fybush]

You worked for them, @michael hagerty , so I don't want to question your knowledge - but I'm pretty sure that WBZ has maintained its own local newsroom (admittedly, it's an outlier in the iHeart system). And while there's some regional sharing of content and newscast production, the iHeart talkers across upstate NY have each maintained some semblance of a local newsroom up till now. There are at least three people at WHAM and one or two each at WSYR, WGY and I think even WKIP in Poughkeepsie.

And I know there's been a newsroom at WOR, which I don't think serves as a hub because why pay expensive NYC talent to feed smaller markets?

 

[TheBigA]

I know there's been a newsroom at WOR

Correct. Larry Mendte is the News Director and he oversees several anchors. Last week the station dropped its morning show, and yesterday Larry was hosting a morning news show with two other reporters. Also correct about WBZ. I was wondering about WLW and KOA as well.

Total Traffic was originally iHeart's syndicated news & traffic service, meant to compete with Westwood One's Metro Traffic. About 15 years ago, iHeart bought Metro from Westwood. At the time, Metro had local offices in just about every major city. They were designed to provide local news & traffic on a barter basis for stations that didn't staff their own newsroom. The traffic service was a huge money maker at one time.

 

[michael hagerty]

You worked for them, @michael hagerty , so I don't want to question your knowledge - but I'm pretty sure that WBZ has maintained its own local newsroom (admittedly, it's an outlier in the iHeart system). And while there's some regional sharing of content and newscast production, the iHeart talkers across upstate NY have each maintained some semblance of a local newsroom up till now. There are at least three people at WHAM and one or two each at WSYR, WGY and I think even WKIP in Poughkeepsie.

And I know there's been a newsroom at WOR, which I don't think serves as a hub because why pay expensive NYC talent to feed smaller markets?

Scott, that's what I was told by a current PD of a large-market iHeart news/talk station yesterday. I don't have independent knowledge.

 

[Syfy]

I think what Big A is saying is largely true, even if he's being unsympathetic in his wording. It's sad to see KFI go from being a "News-Talk" station to a "Talk" station. I agree with others who say KFI is the best talk station in the U.S. What other talk station is local with great hosts nearly all hours and has a newscaster give updates every 15 minutes? These days, most talk stations run network news on the hour and maybe a few minutes of local news at :05 and :30... or maybe not at all outside morning drive time.

But alas, KFI is an AM-only station. Perhaps if one of iHeart's FM stations in LA were floundering, KFI could get an FM simulcast, like KIRO Seattle, KFBK Sacramento, KTAR Phoenix and KSL Salt Lake City. But there is no candidate on the Los Angeles FM dial to be wiped out for a KFI-FM to debut. And that's the problem.

It's great to have the news department as a part of every KFI talk show, giving updates with crisp writing and knowledgeable street reporters. And the hour of all-news at 5 a.m. is a gem, even if it's so early many folks don't hear it. But at the end of the day, KFI is an AM talk station. It's the talk hosts who keep KFI as one of the most listened-to AM stations in the country... not the newscasters.

iHeart's stock closed today at $2.49. It's not Tesla or Invidia or Apple. IHRT is a stock likely none of us would put money into. Bob Pittman may be evil, with layoffs and cutbacks across the country at iHeart's hundreds of stations, trying to squeeze a few more bucks as profit. Or he may be a master juggler, keeping that $2.49 stock viable as a business and keeping the other 1,000 iHeart workers on the payroll. I think the latter is true.

Or to make sure none of his salary or bonuses are cut…. How much of a salary cut did Bob Pittman take? Funny how you left that part out while glorifying him for cutting thousands of jobs.

 

[Mark Roberts]

Just because these people are leaving doesn't mean those who will follow are lower quality. They're just different people.

They may not be as experienced or as knowledgeable about the stories they are covering*. Even with positive intent, they simply may not be able to do as good a job. Experience matters, which is why experienced people make more money than inexperienced people. That, in turn, makes them prime targets for layoffs in a time of financial austerity.

* = Or for the staffs they are managing. Speaking from experience, I can say that you learn how to manage people on the job and, at the beginning, you make lots of mistakes. Then you learn and get better. That takes time.

 

[Mark Roberts]

It's likely you'll see a slide to more generic "of interest to all California" content.

Considering the diversity and size of California, that's a huge mistake. It's essentially giving up, and treating news as filler. Might as well just be weather and traffic.

Not that anyone listens to the iHeart San Francisco stations for news or anything informative - the BIN station being a possible exception for a specialized audience - but people in much of the Bay Area simply are not interested in what goes on in Los Angeles. I don't know enough to say whether the reverse is true, or whether Sacramento people feel the same way about Los Angeles.

 

[Loverofradio]

As someone who works in the news business (albeit its tv and I do sports but have been an evening anchor/reporter 3 different times), how does iHeart expect to cover local news with this service? I understand cost cutting. But, how do they expect to cover news the same way reporters at KFI did it. How many staffers does TTN have?

 

[Voicetrack of Reason]

While I understand the reality of what BigA is saying, I am regularly stuck listening to TTN's "rip and read" news anchors, mostly in the Midwest and Northeast. It's not good. I'd grade it "C" at best. Hopefully, this isn't what happens at KFI, but I wouldn't be surprised.

 

[Loverofradio]

Correct. Larry Mendte is the News Director and he oversees several anchors. Last week the station dropped its morning show, and yesterday Larry was hosting a morning news show with two other reporters. Also correct about WBZ. I was wondering about WLW and KOA as well.

How come other iHeart stations can keep their news services? Not implying I want people to lose jobs

 

[Deus Ex Machiato]

As someone who works in the news business (albeit its tv and I do sports but have been an evening anchor/reporter 3 different times), how does iHeart expect to cover local news with this service?

They don't.

 

[michael hagerty]

Considering the diversity and size of California, that's a huge mistake. It's essentially giving up, and treating news as filler. Might as well just be weather and traffic.

Not that anyone listens to the iHeart San Francisco stations for news or anything informative - the BIN station being a possible exception for a specialized audience - but people in much of the Bay Area simply are not interested in what goes on in Los Angeles. I don't know enough to say whether the reverse is true, or whether Sacramento people feel the same way about Los Angeles.

They do. And unless it's HUGE, they feel that way about San Francisco, too.

The boundaries of interest, for Sacramento are (roughly) Yuba City to the north, Vacaville to the west (and some people will argue it's really Davis), Stockton to the south (and some people will argue it's really Lodi) and Lake Tahoe to the east (but again, apart from wildfires and highway snow closures, if you drew the line at Pollock Pines or even Placerville, that's enough for most folks.

 

[michael hagerty]

How come other iHeart stations can keep their news services? Not implying I want people to lose jobs

You need to go back and re-read this thread.

 

[michael hagerty]

Afternoon news anchor Debra Mark apparently will be staying. This from Debra's social media today.

 

[Gregg.]

It's not a total massacre. A few KFI news anchors are still employed, according to Lance Venta's update on his Radio Insight story from yesterday. Hosts Gary and Shannon are discussing the news department right now. They are saying they will have to take up the slack, doing more news interviews. And they explained this is the trend in radio, cutting the news staff.

Questions...

--Is the 5 a.m. news hour still there?

--Is a newscaster doing an update every 15 minutes as before? Amy King is doing an update now at 9:30 a.m. PT. I also heard her at 9:15 a.m. Apparently KFI is sticking with its news-every-15-minutes-on-weekdays schedule.

--Have any new news voices been heard yet? Someone from the iHeart newsroom in Long Beach instead of a KFI anchor?

--I can't hear any news during "Coast to Coast AM". The iHeartRadio feed for KFI covers over all overnight newscasts with commercials, even the 6 minutes of news on the hour. Or maybe folks listening on line in So. Cal. get the news but the rest of the country gets commercials? Is a local newscaster still doing updates during George Noory? Or has KFI begun using network news overnight?

If you want to compare KFI to WOR, the NYC iHeart Talk station does have local newscasters around the clock, even on weekends. WOR doesn't run network news. But except for morning drive, they are all folks in the iHeart NYC newsroom. WOR doesn't do updates every 15 minutes as KFI does. It's twice an hour on weekday mornings, middays and afternoons, once-an-hour the rest of the time.

 

[ChannelFlipper]

It's not a total massacre. A few KFI news anchors are still employed, according to Lance Venta's update on his Radio Insight story from yesterday. Hosts Gary and Shannon are discussing the news department right now. They are saying they will have to take up the slack, doing more news interviews. And they explained this is the trend in radio, cutting the news staff.

A question that I don't see addressed on this thread, which I think is quite pertinent (getting ready for the blowback on this even as I type) is, How much of KFI's audience is actually tuning in to hear the news? What if there is evidence that it isn't that much?

I admit I haven't listened to the station on a regular basis in over 10 years.I have posted many times that they took the stimulating part out a long time ago, and boring talk radio just doesn't do it for me. Neutering J&K was the last straw. But when I did, it was to hear the scheduled opinion hosts. I didn't give the news at the top of the hour much thought at all. Back then, if I wanted to hear news, I would tune to KNX or KFWB, both of which were news 24/7. In my mind, having TOH three minute newscasts on KFI seemed rather superfluous.

I want to be clear I am in no way diminishing the fine news people that are being discussed on this thread, I fully recognize they are great at what they do, and I do consider it a sad day that they no longer have jobs and that is the result of the changing environment.